


love [story]

by woojin



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 12:41:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9182266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woojin/pseuds/woojin
Summary: (au in which taeyong only has eyes for taeil, but everyone thinks he's with jaehyun)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 한국어 available: [love [story] 한국어판](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9637730) by [soolverine (orphan_account)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/soolverine)



> i wanted an excuse to write small neighborhood of seoul boys....and taeil as a college student is just to die for considering the stories of how gifted he was and got into many good schools but gave it up to go to sm.....i've also been bsessed with s.e.s lately, so the fic is largely inspired by their song love [story]
> 
> anyways enjoy!!

Taeyong’s hands had a habit of brushing against Jaehyun’s. The fingers would barely touch the tips of Jaehyun’s delicate hands. When they walked, they had a habit of them enfolding on one another. 

That didn’t mean love to Taeyong. Touching Jaehyun, being with Jaehyun, didn’t excite him. 

Taeyong knew when he was in love. He didn’t rush to be with Jaehyun, he didn’t think of Jaehyun in the day, when assignments screamed in his face to be completed. His dreams didn’t involve Jaehyun, Jaehyun sitting in a green grass with the sun shining on his skin as if the world was his own, Jaehyun crawling to him in the deep night asking for his embrace. 

That was Taeil’s place, this all belonged to Taeil. When Taeil blushed staring directly at Taeyong, those moments consumed Taeyong’s thoughts. Far from Jaehyun, it was never Jaehyun.

He understood where it came from. Taeyong and Jaehyun had been friends since they were in diapers, and the friends-to-lovers cliche was expected of them. But Taeyong couldn’t think of anything more of Jaehyun than platonic. 

Romantic feelings were saved for Taeil. Taeil was a college student, living quietly with his mother and father next door. Being accepted into one of the best universities in the state, he was the small town’s pride. He studied hard, the example that parents in the town used against their sons when trying to get out of studying. He wore glasses that were thin and fragile, and had ash blonde hair after impulsively dying. Taeyong thought his glasses were cute. His hair as well. He found everything about Taeil cute.

Taeil was also smaller than Taeyong, a few inches shorter than the younger. He constantly had a book in his face, always crouching down with textbooks in his arms when talking to Taeyong. Taeyong knew he studied genetics, and that he was writing an extensive research paper about it, specifically about epigenetics, something about the traits that can’t be explained by the changes in DNA sequence.

“Yeah, but people say it comes from predetermined and probabilistic epigenesis.” he says, as they sit on the steps outside the entrance of Taeil’s home.

“Hyung, I don’t know what that means.”

He laughs, a full one. He sneezes right after, small and barely noticeable. “Sorry, I get a bit too enthusiastic about that sort of thing. I know you don’t care, but it’s cute seeing you pretend that you do.”

Taeyong gets nervous hearing that, he swallows his fear down his throat. He’s still in his school uniform, so he loosens his tie a bit. 

When he asks Jaehyun about his Taeil predicament, at school the next day, he answers. “I think he’s well aware you like him. He got into Seoul University, he can’t be that dumb.”

“Why do people think we’re more than friends?” Taeyong suddenly asks. He makes the air feel a lot more heavy to Jaehyun.

“Because we look like we are, I suppose. You have this gleam in your eyes. I think you look like you’re in love with everyone, if we’re being honest. Seulgi even blushed looking at you, and I don’t think she even likes boys.”

True, him and Jaehyun had been more than friends, once. It was in the middle of summer, and there was no air conditioning in Taeyong’s house. They stayed still, sulking in the July sun. Jaehyun’s sweat dripped from his forehead, the splatches of red thrown on his cheeks glowed, and his body’s inhaling and exhaling was quick and hushed.

So when Taeyong looked above from Jaehyun’s view, he decided to make his body hotter. Their lips on lips, their clinging on each other, and their jerking of each other off, all of that was fake. The cry that came from Jaehyun’s mouth was of desperation, not attraction. The slick cum that was painted all over Taeyong’s hand was not of a lover, but a stranger of some ways.

Their friendship was awkward after that. Taeyong couldn’t explain what drove him to do it, neither could Jaehyun explain what drove him to respond. And on one August night, Jaehyun had ran in the middle of a rainstorm to tell Taeyong he was sorry for building a bridge around himself. And yes, it did look very romantic.

“I’d say wait for Taeil to bring it up. He’s not the type to wait long.”

Except Taeil was. When Taeil wasn’t talking about his research, he talked about classical music, and rap, because that was the only genre he heard besides classical. His stepbrother, Minhyung, blasted whatever rapper was cool at the moment in his hometown of Canada. Taeil, the loser he was, used it as a way to appeal to Taeyong, and to show that he “was hip with the times,” to which Taeyong told him, “No one hip says they’re hip.”

Taeil was at his desk, in his tiny, cramped, room. Taeyong sat on his unmade bed, the edge about two inches away from the chair that Taeil sat on. On Taeil’s wall were quotes from Locke, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Thoreau, Paine, all in English. “I know what those say,” Taeil would say, his nose crinkling when he smiled, knowing that he could understand English phrases.

“I didn’t know you were that good, hyung.”

“With Minhyung’s help,” he looked down, admitting his lie.

Taeil also liked to ask Taeyong how school was doing, mostly so that he could comment about how whatever Taeyong was struggling wasn’t difficult. 

“I don’t think Calculus is that hard,” Taeil said as he was reading about genomic imprinting. “Did you know the most well-known case of genomic imprinting can be caused by Angelman syndrome, and Prader-Willi syndrome, which is caused by the same genetic mutation — chromosome 15q partial deletion? Maybe I should read up on that.”

“Shut the fuck up, hyung.”

“By the way, this guy at my college asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with him. He’s from America, like Mark.” Taeil said, dusting lint off his t-shirt, which said “SEOUL UNIVERSITY” in big, blue letters.

“I’m from Canada!” Minhyung yelled from the other room.

“You were born in America!” he shouted back. “Anyways, his name’s Youngho, but he told me to call him Johnny. Isn’t that cool, Taeyong? He’s from Chicago. I don’t even know where that is, but it sounds so cool.”

“American guys aren’t that cool, hyung.” Minhyung entered the room, sitting on Taeyong’s back, while his stomach layed front on the bed.

“Yeah,” Taeyong said. “Jaehyun lived in America, too. He said it’s boring as fuck.”

“Just because you’re dating Jaehyun doesn’t mean his opinion can change mine.” Taeil laughed. He was joking, but Taeyong was about to go crazy.

Even Taeil had caught onto the joke that him and Jaehyun were in love. He wanted to die. A medically induced coma didn’t look so bad to Taeyong right now, or better yet, euthanasia. It had to be legal somewhere.

“Lee Taeyong!” Taeyong’s mother shouted from the window in their kitchen, across the street. The road in between their apartments was narrow, and Taeyong was able to see his mother’s slim figure screaming, with smoke peeking out from the top corners of the window, to which she abruptly ran inside.

“I think my mom wants me home,” Taeyong said, Minhyung playing with his fingers, bitten down to the end, and Taeil jotting something with a blue pen. His favorite pen, in fact, Taeil wrote his entrance exam essay with this pen, and claimed whatever assignment he wrote with this pen would earn an A. Henceforth, Taeil always wrote with blue pens.

“Okay, it’s only about —” Taeil looked at his wrist, “— 4:30 though.”

 

“She probably wants me to run an errand or something,” Taeyong hopped out of the bed. He straightened the edge of his sweater, and pulled up his socks. School had ended about an hour ago, but Taeyong often went to Taeil’s house right after, since he rarely had afternoon classes. (Taeil was definitely a morning person. He used the afternoon to recharge, and then attended lab sessions in the night on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today was Wednesday though, and Taeil liked company when he didn’t have anywhere to be the next day.)

As Taeyong was about to leave Taeil’s room, he heard a faint “See you TY,” from Minhyung, and Taeil had ran out of his seat, calling Taeyong’s name.

“Come have lunch with me and Youngho tomorrow.”

“You want me to third wheel you, Taeil?”

“No! It’s not third wheeling. That implies he asked me out in, uh,”

“A romantic way?”

“Yes. A romantic way. And anyways, he’s inviting this guy Hansol, and I don’t want to look like I have no friends.”

“There’s only me, and Minhyung but he kind of has to like you, that’s your friend. You spent your entire life studying, you didn’t have much time to make friends.” Taeyong said, his eyes reflecting in Taeil’s barely rimmed glasses.

“Not true, there’s Kun. He’s in my Multivariable Calculus class.”

“Okay, fine, three. I’ll go, but you have to check me out of school.”

“Fine.” Taeil said, a grin forming.

“You also have to pay for me.” Taeyong added.

“Christ, whatever, okay.” 

…

 

Youngho was fucking huge. On top of that, everything screamed that he was from America, his accented Korean, the mixing of English randomly in his sentences, his confidence in how he carried himself, his piercings, his sense of humor was vulgar and unapologetic, and lastly: the fact that he was so likable and friendly.

Taeyong had thought, if Youngho, or Johnny, was born and raised in Korea, he’d probably be a lot less loud, and extremely hyper-conscious of himself. He’d be meticulous about his looks, and probably would have been made fun of the qualities that made him attractive, like his height, or that his neck was long and made him even more graceful.

His friend, Hansol, was quite literally Youngho’s polar opposite. Quiet, careful, scrupulous, he mostly observed the conversations that surrounded Taeil and Youngho. Although, one of the three sentences he said in the first hour was, “Taeyong, you’re very handsome,” so Taeyong had a favorable opinion of him. 

Even worse, Taeil looked absolutely enamored with Youngho, he was everything Taeil wished he was, and it even made Taeil’s skin glow with the brightest hue Taeyong’s ever seen. Youngho talked about how he was on the university’s basketball team, and how he had started playing when he was in primary school in Chicago. (Taeyong googled the place in the library. It was in the state of Illinois, and one of the most populous cities in America. It also had a large Korean community there, and for half an hour Taeyong started testing his English skills by reading reviews for Korean restaurants.)

Taeyong felt like he was third wheeling. He wouldn’t call it fourth wheeling, since Hansol probably felt the same. Taeyong started talking to Hansol then, learning that he’s from Busan, and travelled all the way to Seoul to come to school. He was diligent and took his studies seriously. Taeyong was surprised to learn that Hansol studied dance, and was trained in dozens of different types.

“Maybe I’ll take you out to dance sometime,” Hansol grinned, the first time he had smiled the whole day.

“I’d like that, sounds cool,” Taeyong’s thumb played with the hem of his sweater.

Youngho and Taeil talked about quite literally every topic Taeyong could ever think of. They went from global warming, to 2000s anime, to how technology is affecting modern human relationships. 

Taeyong couldn’t help but feel jealous. He couldn’t help but feel his body burn in greed when Taeil’s eyes bore into Youngho’s. It was fine though, because Taeil probably didn’t want to date a high school boy who had mediocre grades and didn’t have a particular outstanding talent (except rapping, but Taeyong refused to let anyone read his lyrics, and let few hear him practice. Jaehyun was the only person that knew this hobby, and it was because he was ashamed of his current style. He wished he could be better. He considered telling Taeil, but feared that he’d judge him. Nonetheless, the skies went dark as Taeyong would rephrase his words dozens of times.).

As Taeyong felt like he was about to punch a wall, Taeil recieved a message from Minhyung on his phone. He asked Youngho if he could be excused (to which Youngho responded “Yeah,” in the coolest tone followed by a smile that could kill. Taeyong wanted to kill him.)

“Hey, uh, sorry, it was my brother,” Taeil said, placing his small phone on the table. “Taeyong, you haven’t said much. You’re usually so talkative.”

“Yeah, bro, don’t be so tense, What’s up? You’re in high school right?” Youngho pushed up so that his (humongous) arms folded on the table. 

“He is. Maybe if you guys took your heads out of each others asses, you’d know that. Try not to drag the two of us out on your little dates next time,” Hansol got up. “It’s been like two hours, man, almost three hours.

“Taeyong, I put my number in your phone when you were getting napkins. Text me if you ever feel like hanging out.”

He left, wishing the waitress that had served them a nice day. “Ah, he’s usually like that. Don’t mind him.”

…

“Hey, Taeyong,” Taeil said, as they walked back into their neighborhood. “I’m sorry for —”

“Yeah, no, not really, Taeil,” Taeyong said, smoothing the back of his pitch black hair.

“Don’t tell me you actually agree with Hansol,” 

“Of course I do, Taeil, who fucking brings someone that likes them on their fucking date.” Taeyong realized what he said, but he didn’t really care. He felt that Taeil needed to know the truth. It wouldn’t make sense why he was upset then.

He turned around, shoulders tense. “Another thing, try to tell me you have a crush on Youngho beforehand, next time. If there is a next time.”

Was he throwing his friendship away? Absolutely. Did he care? Not now, but he’ll definitely be crying about it soon.

He stormed off. Into the house, and threw himself on his bed, and allowed himself, finally, to be upset. He let the tears make a puddle on his puddle, he let his anger overtake him, and he took his phone, and texted Jaehyun to come over.

Fifteen minutes later, Jaehyun had come into the room, wearing a thin tank top and basketball shorts. He was clearly relaxing, and had nowhere to be. 

“I fucked everything up with Taeil. Well, he fucked everything up first, but I kind of took it to another realm. And anyway — ” he proceeded to tell the story again.  
“Yeah, you fucked it up. Taeil’s just clueless, but you shouldn’t have gotten mad at him if it wasn’t his intention.” Jaehyun came closer to Taeyong, and gave him a small kiss on his forehead.

“What the hell was that for?”

“I don’t know, I just thought it’d show my affection.” Jaehyun grabbed Taeyong’s face and while giggling, taunted Taeyong about it, “Come on, kiss me, Taeyong hyung, you know you want to,”

Taeyong placed a small peck on Jaehyun’s cheek. Jaehyun returned the favor on his lips. They stared at each other for a long time, before meeting their lips again. They kept repeatedly laying these kisses, some lasting a split second, some lasting for so long, they gasped for air. 

Taeyong wasn’t sure why he was doing this, and neither was Jaehyun. When their hands roamed around each others’ bodies, that was as far as it got. The intimacy was scary. Both of them craved touch, but no one wanted to replicate the fiery July day so long ago.

After about thirty minutes, Jaehyun laughed again, getting up to go home. “That was fun, hyung. But if you’re gonna be with Taeil, you might as well give this friends-with-benefits thing up,”

 

“Okay, fuck off, Jae.”

“Love you,”

“You too.”

The relationship was odd. Neither really confronted that though. Jaehyun closed the door.

At that exact moment, Taeyong was getting a call from Taeil. He let it go straight to voicemail.

“Hey, Taeyong, I know it’s been a few hours, but I’ve been thinking of you. A lot. More than usual. I want us to be able to talk, but it’s okay if you want to wait. It’s been a few hours.” There was a pause, probably from trying to find the right words to say.

“I don’t like Youngho. I admire him a lot, and I respect his opinion. He’s everything I wish I was. He has nothing that I feel for you.”

Taeyong almost choked on his spit, and sat up on his bed.

“Taeyong, I think I’m a bit drunk, but you’re one of my few friends. The few people I can say I can love. I do love you, Taeyong. In more ways you could imagine. You’re my dream boy?” Taeil coughed, and coughed, and this went on for about fifteen seconds.

“You’re wise for your age. Very wise. I wasn’t as smart as you were in high school, and it’s admirable how humble you are, and the way you’re attentive and considerate to everyone. Please don’t think I ignore you. It’s too hard to ignore someone like you, and especially if there’s not many people to pay attention to otherwise. I’m lonely, Taeyong, and that’s my own doing.”

There were sounds of people yelling in background. It seemed like he was outside, with cars honking, and the way Taeil’s voice echoed in the message,

“To be honest, I didn’t know you liked me. I like you too. A lot. Please call me Taeyong, Taeyong, Taeyong.” his voice was slurring. “Please, I miss you, I miss knowing that you’re there for me, Taeyong. I’m sorry.”

The call ended. He had punched in Taeil’s number, and after the fourth ring he picked up.

“Oh, Taeyong, thank goodness, listen —”

“It’s fine, no, I’m sorry, I made it a big deal when it wasn’t.”

Taeil laughed. “Jaehyun’s doing?”

Taeyong’s mind flashed back to those tender kisses on his lips around an hour ago.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!!! i always imagined taeil studying something related to science, something incredibly complicated and very advanced and ahead of the time. and taeyong and jaehyun will always until death (as jaehyun stated lol)
> 
> leave comments!!! please.........i always enjoy feedback


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